Comparing The Hippocratic Oath And Principles Of Medical Ethics Of The American Medical Association

Both the Hippocratic Oath and Principles of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association focuses on giving full benefit to the patient. However, there are some major differences between the oath and medical ethics of American Medical Association on various subjects such as patient’s rights, duties of physicians towards the benefit of the society etc. Hippocratic Oath was earliest code of ethics to govern conduct in medicine. Unlike many modern professional codes, its intent was to describe a moral vision for members of the medical community rather than to protect members of the community from incurring on the law. This oath and AMA medical ethics are similar as the primary goal of both codes of ethics is to give full benefit to the

The major difference is that while both codes of ethics place a huge emphasis on benefiting the patient, only AMA discusses the duties of physicians to benefit the society. AMA specifies that while the physician’s major responsibility is his/her patient and the treatment, he also has a great amount of responsibility towards the society and his profession. Also, AMA highlights that every physician has a duty to contribute towards the betterment of his/her community. The oath mentions the duty of physician towards his/her patient and teachers but never a society which I believe is very important especially now a days. The other major difference is that the code of ethics mentions providing care with “compassion and respect for human dignity and rights,” whereas there is no discussion about the rights of a patient or even upholding human rights (Veatch, 189). To me this is a huge issue as I believe every person should be aware of his/her own rights in every walk of life especially medicine , and no one should have any right to make a decision on behalf of anyone or in this case without patient’s consent. The oath forbids abortion, euthanasia, and doing any harm to a patient. Whereas, AMA does not mention anything that specifically forbids such actions. In the oath, a physician will leave operations/treatments to specialists to which he